The present application relates to a self-luminous light emitting device including an organic layer, a method of manufacturing the light emitting device, and a display unit including the light emitting device.
Recently, an organic EL display using a self-luminous light emitting device including an organic layer has been put to practical use. The organic EL display is of a self-luminous type, and therefore has a wide viewing angle compared with, for example, a liquid crystal display, and is sufficiently responsive to a high-definition and high-speed video signal.
Previously, the organic light emitting device has been tried to be improved in display performance through control of light generated in a light emitting layer, such as improvement in color purity of emission light or improvement in light emission efficiency by introducing a resonator structure. For example, the organic light emitting device may adopt a structure where a first electrode layer, an organic layer, and a second electrode layer are stacked in this order on a substrate with a drive circuit including a drive transistor, etc. in between. In the organic light emitting device of a top emission type, the second electrode layer is configured of a transparent conductive material, and light from the organic layer is multiply-reflected between the first and the second electrode layers, so that the light is extracted from a surface (top) on a side opposite to the substrate. The transparent conductive material used for the second electrode layer typically has a higher resistance value than a metal material. Hence, in a relatively large light emitting device, display performance may be reduced towards a central region from an end region of a display section due to voltage drop. When thickness of the second electrode layer is increased, voltage drop in a display plane is reduced due to a decrease in resistance value, but visible-light transmittance of the second electrode layer is decreased, and light extraction efficiency of the light emitting device is reduced.
To solve such difficulties, there is provided techniques of reducing voltage drop in the second electrode layer, for example, by connecting the second electrode layer to an auxiliary electrode provided on a second substrate via a conductor, a conductive rib, or a conductive resin layer (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication Nos. 2002-033198 and 2011-103205 (JP-A-2002-033198 and JP-A-2011-103205)).